Friends plan fund-raising party, walk

Julie Smith, Amanda Ford and Jessica Minner stand with a photo of their friend Ashley Burgauer who passed away at the age of 27 from myocarditis. They have organized a 5k on Sept. 13 and a fundraiser at the Fickle Peach on Aug. 16.(Photo: Corey Ohlenkamp/The Star Press, Corey Ohlenkamp/The Star Press)Buy Photo

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THE PARTY: 7 p.m. Aug. 16 at The Fickle Peach. Music by Cory Hill and a silent auction

MUNCIE – Were Ashley Burgauer alive today, the beautiful young woman would love the party her friends are throwing at The Fickle Peach on Aug. 16.

She’d just be embarrassed all the fuss was being made over her.

“Ashley wouldn’t be so keen on us plastering her picture all around Muncie,” said Julie Smith, of the woman who had been her best friend since the age of 5.

As Smith spoke, she was in the game room of her southside home with two other friends, Jessica Minner and Amanda Ford. Surrounding them were boxes of fun things to be auctioned off at the Honoring Our Friends With Big Hearts party.

Funds earned at the party — which starts at 7 p.m., and will feature musician Cory Hill — will go to the Myocarditis Foundation, that “silent” heart infection being what killed their friend last year. Then on Sept. 13 at 8 a.m., a 5K fund-raising walk, The Honor Stride, will raise funds going to Riley Hospital for Children in Ashley’s name.

When Smith, Minner and Ford meet, they laugh, as you would expect of three young women with a common cause, but there is also sadness.

A Central High School and Ball State University graduate, Ashley was a 27-year-old registered nurse when on Aug. 29, 2013, she and her dog visited her parents, Ed and Kathy Burgauer, who had business that day in Indianapolis. While Ashley had been ill for years with ulcerative colitis, there was no reason to think this day was different from any other one, when she would come over to use their computer or watch their big-screen TV.

But when the Burgauers returned home about 5 p.m., the sight of Ashley’s car still in their driveway filled both with foreboding. Entering the house, they found their daughter dead on their bed.

When Ed discusses his daughter, he prefaces his remarks with this: “It’s hard for me to talk about. I’m not ashamed that I cry about every day. ... I wake up at all hours of the night, and the first thought on my mind is Ashley.”

Their friends at College Avenue United Methodist Church have been a comfort, though, and he and Kathy experience rare moments of happiness in the midst of a pain that, unfortunately, is not uncommon.

“We just never realized how many people in our community have lost children,” Ed said, referring to them as “this same dreadful club we’re in.”

Amy Sargent, Ashley’s sister, feels that pain, too.

“It’s been a rough journey,” she said, noting it has been all the more more so because after her sister’s death, she gave birth to a son, Zachary, a special-needs baby she knows Ashley would have swept up with love. “It was pretty intense, to say the least, but it would have been a little easier if Ashley were here.”

Meanwhile, Ashley’s mom, Kathy, knows the pain only a mother can know.

“It’s a pain that will never go away, because it’s a pain that leaves a hole in your heart,” she said. “You can’t move on with the loss of a child. You do, but ... it changes your life.”

But if there is any positive change, it is that Ashley’s death has inspired the Burgauers to spread the word about myocarditis.

“We knew nothing about myocarditis until our daughter died from it,” Kathy said.

The same held true for Smith, Minner and Ford, as did the determination to do something about it in their friend’s honor. The three were making plans to take part in another fundraiser when they thought, why not hold one for Ashley?

“There were so many people touched by Ashley’s passing,” Minner said of her friend, a spirited young woman who, despite her trials, never sought sympathy for herself.

“And there are so many who have lost loved ones too soon,” continued Ford, flashing her blue myocarditis bracelet.

The three began planning all this before telling the Burgauers about it.

“They surprised us with this whole idea,” Ed said. “They said they just wanted to talk to us, but they already had a website. We sat there and cried together ... it was so heartwarming.”

Now that the three young women have put their grief and shock into action, their lives have changed. All say they have never been dedicated to anything like they are to this.

“It’s kind of my new fascination,” Smith said, “to make people aware of myocarditis.”

In one way, she added, Ashley will be at her party, too.

“She’s looking down on this,” Smith said. “We feel like the event has been blessed.”

Contact feature writer John Carlson at (765) 213-5824.

Ashley Burgauer fundraisers

THE PARTY: It starts at 7 p.m. Aug. 16 downtown at The Fickle Peach and will feature music by Cory Hill and a silent auction, with funds going to the Myocarditis Foundation.

THE 5K WALK: It starts at 8 a.m. Sept. 13 and will begin and end at Central High School. Donation levels of $5, $10, $15